Innocent Accused wrote:
Locked Out wrote:
One of the biggest problems we have here is, I think, that a lot of Brits are labaouring under the misapprehension that the Pound is in some way a superior currency to the Euro, and that because of our membership of the EU the Pound is being dragged down. All that is needed, apparently, is for us to get out of the EU and the Quid will soar off into some dreamy sunlit upland. Britain was a joke abroad before we joined the EU and if we leave we'll be not only almost entirely unproductive, we'll also be utterly, totally and comprehensively isolated. There's little confidence in the UK economy in the world outside this sceptred isle as it is. Beleaguered it may be, but the Euro is a real currency - a world class currency. But I suspect that even as they are flailing their arms and drowning because they didn't think to pack a Plan-B lifejacket, the Referendum campaigners will still be spluttering on about how we're better off out. Welcome on board the SS Britannic.

The Euro is indeed a world currency,and one most of the world wants to sell

The English pound is indeed a well respected currency in asia,I doubt the euro will be soon.

Well if you are right - and I am wrong - I look forward to my Pound buying more Euros in future. But what's this...? Instead of the increasingly worthless Euro being used to redecorate the walls of European businessmens' luxiplush offices, it is steadfastly refusing to die in the sights of the good old fashioned Bren Gun.

Listening to IA, SE and Patty, one takes away the impression that, as the Euro is so worthless these days when compared with the Pound, the years' performance of one currency against the other should look radically different from the actuality, which is;

January
0.845838 GBP (20 days average)
February
0.846297 GBP (20 days average)
March
0.866533 GBP (23 days average)
April
0.882947 GBP (20 days average)
May
0.877877 GBP (22 days average)
June
0.887448 GBP (22 days average)
July
0.884759 GBP (21 days average)
August
0.876685 GBP (23 days average)
September
0.871723 GBP (22 days average)
October
0.87036 GBP (21 days average)
November
0.8594 GBP (4 days average)

*Source www.x-rates.com/d/GBP/EUR/hist2011.html

It appears from these figures that the Pound is doing only marginally less well against the Euro than it was in January, before the Euro's woes really began. Oh, for a return to those glory days of '99 when a Euro would cost only 71p.
Still, Rule Britannia, eh? No doubt we'll be grabbing that empire back any time now. Just as long as we can drag ourselves away from The X Factor and stay off strike for long enough. Oh, I forgot something. We'll have to start creating and investing in British manufacturing first. Something neither British banks or British businesses seem to want to do. I wonder why?
C'est la vie.

Locked Out,the pound has different problems to the euro.Interest rates being considerably higher during the time of your comparison.
With all the problems you've rightly listed about your country will they be improved by being in the euro?

Pattaya wrote:
Locked Out,the pound has different problems to the euro.Interest rates being considerably higher during the time of your comparison.
With all the problems you've rightly listed about your country will they be improved by being in the euro?

OK, So the last 10 months and a bit clearly aren't enough evidence of the Euro's outperformance of Sterling. But we are looking at a period over which the playing field has leveled and been relatively stable, as the figures I have produced show. What they also show is that while global confidence in the Euro has been dented, there continues to be virtually no confidence in Sterling. Any study of longer term figures show that the decline of the Pound against the Euro has been much more dramatic.

That the UK would be better off inside the relative security of a currency which even under the extreme pressures of today consistently outperforms in every area the doomed 19th Century Pound is clear. And the refusal to understand this, when coupled with the desire to kick out the immigrants and take all the usual {failed} steps nationalists wish to take when faced with economic hard times, has more to do with sentimentality than realism.

Sure the Euro is weak at the moment. But that weakness is temporary. The Pounds problems are permanent.

I'm with LO on this - indeed, I'm one of those who thinks we should have been in the Euro from Day One and ought to be in it now.

frankly a singular currency is far better otherwise it's all swings and roundabouts. Aussie dollar is high at present-great for going abroad but a nightmare for exports.

I win one way but when I sell a product-as I do to the UK and USA often, what I receive is half what I got 5 years ago.

same same industry- imported cars become cheaper but exporting cars to Asia...a big industry in Oz going to get very bad.

supply and flow of finance is the world's greatest product-everything comes form that. Sadly it's in the wrong hands...private hands..and gutless politicians are terrified to throw their weight around.

you wonder what they are there for..when all they do is implement policies for private corporations.

Happily back from euroland,very expensive as per usual!

Funny thing,but just about everyone I met when the subject came up said they'd prefer the French/Belgium Franc back.In fact nowhere in my extensive travels did I see any real support for it...except here?

Locked Out wrote:
Then perhaps the Belgians ought to have their own referendum. I just hope they're better able to make informed judgments than we are. Let's face it, they couldn't be any worse. At least they are, perhaps, less likely to want to know what Cheryl or Jordan thinks before making up their own minds.

But seriously, even the most simple study of history tells us that in times of economic hardship the first thing that happens is that everyone looks around for someone to blame, and it's usually someone else. And in that much they're probably correct. But laying the blame squarely on the shoulders of fellow Europeans is pretty dumb when the origins of everyone's woes lay in precisely the opposite direction. That other European countries are reacting in the same stupidly nationalistic way that we are comes as no surprise to me {I know that in Italy, for instance, they are taking it out on immigrants in much the same way as we are and, incidentally, the Low Countries are particularly guilty of the same thing - think Geert Wilders}. Be that as it may, you can't plan long term economic policy based on short term, knee jerk nationalism.

No matter how many people agreed with Hitler - and there was widespread admiration for both him and his repellent agenda all the way across Europe - it didn't make him or his world view right. An extreme example, I'm aware, but we should be very aware of what people will believe - and exactly how far those people will go - when they're skint.

And anyway, whatever feelings you encountered in the areas you visited have utterly nothing to do with whether or not we should have a referendum here.


Ah LO,while I may have completely differing views it's always a pleasure to chat here with you
Have a good week,I'll update you from Romania,as I'm being forced to visit my wife,but of course stopping off to visit a few fair maidens on the way.....all for EU research purposes of course

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058366...tain-BETTER-off.html

If the eurozone is so strong,and we're so weak why do they have the begging bowls out,and why are we filling them?

Even we peasants are getting bored of it! Fione when you can milk those fat cats in the west,pretty shitty when you gotta suffer because of their stupidity!!